German multinational conglomerate ThyssenKrupp has officially debuted its 807-foot-tall Multi test tower in Rottweil, Germany, which houses the company's cable-free, magnet-based, vertical elevator design. Initially revealed in 2014, the concept is now being tested within three of the building's 15 elevator shafts. The technology has the potential to reduce elevator cabin weight by 50 percent, as well as completely reconfigure the way buildings are designed due to a 25 percent increase in available space. The East Side Tower in Berlin—slated for a 2019 completion—is set to be the first building in the world to utilize the Multi system, according to New Atlas. [New Atlas]
A recent study led by Michael Bergin, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University, shows that the accumulation of airborne particles on solar panels reduces energy production by 25 percent. Together with the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW), the team measured solar energy output on panels installed at IITGN for several weeks. According to their research, energy production increased by 50 percent each time panels were cleaned of particles. (These particles are comprised of 92 percent dust as well as composition of carbon and ion pollutants.) The team concluded that regions such as China, India, and the Arabian Peninsula, which have the most dependency on solar energy, have suffered most from this problem. [Duke University]
EkoFarmer is a 43-foot-long farming module concept developed by Finnish enterprise Exsilio for cultivating herbs and vegetables in rural or urban areas using only electricity, water, and ecological cultivation soil produced by Kekkilä Group. The fully enclosed farming pod allows users to manage humidity, water, light, and carbon dioxide to optimize produce growth. This also means that virtually any crop can be grown in any location year round. "[EkoFarmer] can produce approximately 55,000 pots of salad per year," said Thomas Tapio, CEO of Exsilio in a press release. [Eksilio]
CityTree—the “intelligent air filter for cities” by air purification company Green City Solutions—is a mobile moss culture installation that reduces air pollution by absorbing dust, nitrogen dioxide, and ozone gasses. Zhengliang Wu, co-founder of the Berlin-based company, told CNN that "moss cultures have a much larger leaf surface area than any other plant. That means we can capture more pollutants." CityTree has the same impact as 275 trees would, according to CNN. IoT technology monitors the performance of CityTree, which is powered by solar panels, collects its own rain water, and is constructed from recyclable materials. The installation has been placed in Paris, Hong Kong, Oslo, and Brussels, and can remove 250 grams of pollutants per day, and around 240 metric tons of CO2 in a year. [CNN]
ICYMI: The 18th winner of MoMA and MoMA PS1's Young Architects Program, Lumen is a "knitted light" synthetic fabric system designed by Ithaca, N.Y.–based Jenny Sabin Studio. [ARCHITECT]
Elon Musk's The Boring Company has officially started to dig into Los Angeles for the creation of planned underground traffic tunnels. Musk tweeted from his personal Twitter account on June 28, confirming that "Godot," the 400-foot-long boring machine, had completed a dig for the first part of the tunnel. The subterranean road is expected to connect LAX to Culver City, Santa Monica, Westwood, and Sherman Oaks. [The Verge]
Satellite mapping company DigitalGlobe has designed an artificial intelligence (AI) mapping tool, called Penny, that can predict the average income of residential areas by finding correlations between income and urban design features. Created by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University with DigitalGlobe’s analytics platform, GBDX, Penny analyzes shapes, lines, and colors of a satellite image. It then combines that information with Census data to find patterns between income levels and detected features. A city-specific algorithm consequently guesses the income level of an area within the chosen city. Users can add high income markers, such as trees and tennis courts, to areas and see how Penny predicts a change in income level with the addition of these features. Penny is only 86 percent accurate, but programmers believe the tool could one day be used by developers to examine what could happen to a city’s income status if certain urban features are added in specific areas. [DigitalGlobe]
